Russians go to the polls in elections to its parliament amid a fuel crisis, mortuaries swollen with war dead, and an economy that is shrinking. All ingredients point to what should be a landslide against the ruling United Russia Party.
But when the results are announced towards the end of this month, Vladimir Putin’s rubber-stamp-representatives are certain to emerge victorious. They are likely to have the 300+ seats in the Duma to rewrite the constitution.
Putin will have the US president to thank for that. Donald Trump has hamstrung Ukraine by cutting military aid, taken Russia’s side in all negotiations for peace, inexplicably ignored Russia’s support for Iran it the war he started against Tehran, and is now sitting on legislation that would cut back on Putin’s profits from oil price spikes that Trump caused.
Russia’s president is so powerful that he isn’t even a member of the United Russia Party. And to make sure there’s no place for opposition in a new Duma, where dissident voices could be heard and ignored, independent candidates have been squeezed out of registration well ahead of the polls.
Boris Nadezhdin launched a campaign in 2024 on an anti-war platform and even gained the 100,000 signatures he needed to run for the Duma. He was then declared a ‘foreign agent” and forbidden to collect the signatures he already had.
He was soon detained and fined for posting a photograph of Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader poisoned in a Kremlin jail and then banned from leaving Russia.
His natural response was to finally say: “I am not willing to put at risk those who support me and took part in the election campaign — my family, my campaign team, the signature collectors and my supporters.” He fled Russia and now lives in exile.
The independent Russian pollsters the Levada Center's August survey found 76% approved of Putin's performance and 18% disapproving. Some 56% said Russia was moving in the right direction versus 27% saying it was on the wrong course.
Polling under a violent dictatorship that that has invaded a neighbour should be seen as skewing for personal safety – telling the truth on the threshold of your home could lead to a fatal tumble off a balcony in the same flat.
Still, recent polling found that Russians are now feeling some of the pain of the country’s war against Ukraine. Kyiv has been launching effective long ranger missile attacks and hitting closer to 50 per cent of Russia’s oil refining sites.
Levada found that 55% said petrol shortages had made their lives more difficult, with 32% saying they had seriously complicated life. Dissatisfaction was markedly higher among poorer Russians, younger people and those already critical of Putin.
Putin’s approval rating has dipped below 80 per cent for the first time since he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine – by only about 8 per cent though. There may be erosion of support for Putin but not a collapse.
Growth has stalled to roughly 1–1.3% for 2026 after a wartime spending boom pushed it above 4% in 2023–24, and the economy has effectively split in two.
There is a state-subsidized military-industrial sector that’s expanding, and a civilian economy — small and medium enterprises especially — stagnating or shrinking.
Putin has used the National Wealth Fund, Russia's sovereign reserve, to fund his war. But it’s a thinning cushion. It held $113.5 billion in liquid assets before the 2022 invasion. Now it’s got $50 billion, or less.
The Israeli-US war against Iran caused oil prices spikes that delivered a bonanza for Russia at a time when Ukraine has trying to drive the Kremlin out of the war by killing so many Russians that Moscow could no longer afford the $165,000 compensation for those killed in action.
Oil price hikes have meant a daily bonus worth up to $150 million a day, according to Chatham House.
A bill that’s been passed by both the US houses is now sitting on Trump’s desk.
It is designed to offset the bonuses that Putin has enjoyed and to cripple his shadow fleets of tankers and other oil smuggling mechanisms. It is also designed to allow him to impose massive sanctions on China and India, Russia’s biggest oil importers.
The White House hasn’t indicated whether the US president would sign the legislation into law. Much less use it.
He is unlikely to put the squeeze on his friend in Kremlin – not at a time when Putin is openly threatening Europe and the UK while losing some ground in the war in Ukraine and his economy is looking fragile.
That would mean the US supporting its European allies – and Trump hasn’t done that since he returned to the Oval Office last year.
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